Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party

Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik)

regional plenipotentiary representative of the Central Committee of the party appointed by the CC to administer various groups of provincial party organizations and to coordinate the activity of regional soviet and economic bodies. (When the regional bureaus of the CC of the RCP [Bolshevik] were established, the basic administrative unit of the country was the province.) The formation of the regional CC bureaus began as early as 1917-18. They were organized because of the weakness of party organizations in remote regions, the lack of experienced party leaders in the provinces, and the disorder in the means of communication, which created difficulties in administration. In the resolution On the Organizational Question, the ninth congress of the RCP (Bolshevik), held March-April 1920, stated: “In those areas where regional economic bureaus are created, the CC may form regional party bureaus of the CC in order to reinforce and unify party work in the given economic region” (KPSS v Rezoliutsiiakh …, 7th ed., part 1, 1953, pp. 500-01).

Eight regional bureaus of the CC were created: the Siberian, Caucasian (divided in 1921 into two bureaus, the Southeastern and the Caucasian), Urals, Turkestan (changed to the Middle Asian bureau in 1922), Far Eastern (1920), Northwestern (1921), and Kirghiz (Kazakh, 1922). They united about half of the country’s provincial Party organizations under their administration. The Statute for Regional Bureaus explained that the bureau of the CC “is only the plenipotentiary representative of the CC, responsible to it for the organization of work in a region, strictly limited in its daily political and organizational work by the resolutions of all-Russian party congresses and conferences and by the instructions and circulars of the CC” (fzvestiia CC RCP[B], October 1921, no. 33, p. 22). At various times, workers in the regional bureaus have included A. E. Badaev, A. S. Bubnov, K. E. Voroshilov, F. I. Goloshchekin, S. M. Kirov, N. P. Komarov, S. V. Kosior, N. A. Kubiak, V. V. Kuibyshev, S. S. Lobov, A. I. Mikoyan, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, la. E. Rudzutak, D. E. Sulimov, Iu. P. Figatner, M. V. Frunze, I. I. Khodorovskii, and B. Z. Shumiatskii. During 1921-23 one of the founders of the Communist Party of Hungary, Béla Kun, worked in the Urals Bureau of the CC.

The CC bureaus directed all aspects of the economic, political, and ideological work at the local level, carrying out the party line with regard for regional distinctions. The bureaus regularly held regional party conferences and meetings of the secretaries and section chiefs of provincial committees, listening to the reports of provincial organizations accountable to them; members of the CC bureaus systematically checked up on the work of the provincial committees and advised them.

The CC bureaus played an important role in raising the quality of party work and strengthening the economic and soviet machinery at the local level. As they fulfilled their tasks, the bureaus were replaced by elective oblast or krai committees. In February 1922 the Transcaucasus Krai Committee was elected; in December 1923, the Urals Oblast Committee; and in May 1924, the Siberian and Southeastern Krai committees. The Kirghiz Bureau of the CC ceased to exist in February 1925, the Far Eastern Bureau in November 1925, the Northwestern Bureau in November 1927, and the Middle Asian Bureau in 1934.

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